Quick introduction, I am Marc Perkel, founder of the Church of Reality, a religion based on believing in everything that's real. Since we don't kno everything it is really about the pursuit of reality the way it really is. It is like a religious commitment to science. Of all the religious choices out there, I thought reality should be one of them.

One of our goals is evangelizing reality and giving religious and religious rights to Realists and Atheists. We are a 501C3 tax exempt organization. One of the things we do is to keep science sacred. Any rights that the government gives Christians, we get too.

Quick introduction, I am Marc Perkel, founder of the Church of Reality, a religion based on believing in everything that's real. Since we don't kno everything it is really about the pursuit of reality the way it really is. It is like a religious commitment to science. Of all the religious choices out there, I thought reality should be one of them.

One of our goals is evangelizing reality and giving religious and religious rights to Realists and Atheists. We are a 501C3 tax exempt organization. One of the things we do is to keep science sacred. Any rights that the government gives Christians, we get too.

Always looking for new ideas and suggestions. Keep up the good work.

Yours in RealityMarc Perkel

You know Athiesm isn't a religion, it's a group of religions, like Polythiesm and monothiesm.

Religions under Athiesm are more like philosophical practices, than actual religions. But they are religions nonetheless. One of such religions is Taoism and Buddhism.

Unlike what most people believe, Buddhism is a religion that neither accepts nor denies the existence of god/gods. Which means you are free to believe in such if you choose to, you don't have to, because no one is forcing you to decide.

Taoism is the religion based on balance. It would be considered Monothiestic, since it does believe that a divine force controls nature and everything, establishing a unity of balance with the retrospect of creation. Fortunately enough Taoism does not associat such a force as a god, however it also does not deny such a force as a god or the god or whatever. Which mean Taoists have a similar freedom as Buddhists have, to choose to become Athiestic, Monothiestic, or Polythiestic.

I'm creating my own philosophical cult to challenge Christianity to the greatest extent, not to destroy it, but to bring back the true ideas that come from Gnostic Christianity with the establishment of facts and such.

It's a philosphy about free individuality to choose one's own beliefs, to neither enforce nor deny one's self of human nature, to respect the ideas of others, and to consider the possibility of alternate ideology.

But there are strict policies. One cannot deny one's self of their human nature/sins. Like for instance, if you have a great desire of lust. Then you must accept that part of you, for hindering such will only harm your soul. Another policy is that you must accept reincarnation and in beings more intelligent than yourself. Which is just believing that there are extraterrestrials, not that anything involving such would have to do with humanity or anything. But you can choose to believe in that.

And not only must you accept the existence of reincarnation, but you must also accept the reality that the actions or such that effect others will have an effect on your next life. In addition, you must accept that there is no way to excape reincarnation. But you can excape the pains of living in a corrupt world over and over, only by insuring that the proceeding generations of your species no longer contain such a corrupt nature.

That basically reflects to you about the importance of the youth and that you must insure that your species does not go into some sort of a dark age or long-term crisis. Because as a result, you will be force to live in that crisis you help create.

Another basic element to this philosophy is to accept your weaknesses and your flaws. But to also accept that you and everyone else does have a positive attribute. That even though we as a species do have our flaws, which we must accept entirely, that we also have positive attributes that allow us to become successful in life amongst other humans.

You could say my philosophy, not only promotes peace like Buddhism, balance like Taoism, but also the establishment of complete happiness as one's self.

As for a name of this new religion, I guess I'll call it Draneism (Dra-nee-ism).

I'm not asking anyone to follow my philosophy as I know the skeptical ones amongst you would probably have nothing better to do than to completely obliterate any positive view on my ideology. However, if you are interested then perhaps I may be of some assistance in providing you with more insight of this philosophy.

You know Athiesm isn't a religion, it's a group of religions, like Polythiesm and monothiesm.

It has been said before, and by better minds than mine, but obviously it has not been said enough to kill that "it's a religion" idea: If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby (or in this case, it's a group of hobbies).

As to combating religion with religion, that seems as well advised as combating AIDS with cancer: Even if it works are you better off? How about we just stick to combating fantasy and magical thinking with reality and critical thinking?

Hey Marc, thanks for posting. I have some suggestions, or at least, some food for thought. The problem as I see it is that atheism just doesn't have the trappings of religions, and is completely lacking in any kind of PR department. So here are some things we could try:

* Costumes for the clergy. Look, I know the cool religions nowadays are moving away from costumed clergy, but I think that's a mistake. Costumes give your religion a sense of history. They also are used as a way to seperate the really good Realists (the clergy) from the laymen Realists (the "monday Realistis" (I'm flexible on mondays being the holy days, but the Muslims have Friday, the Jews have Saturday, and the Christians have Sunday, we came late to the party so we just have to make due)). Given the realities of global warming I think we should be forward thinking and go with something with a middle eastern flair. They've been living in the desert for a couple of millenium, so I'm guessing they've figured out the whole cool clothing thing. The only problem I see with this is that it could cause problems at airport security lines, but i'm willing to be a matry for the cause. Lastly, the importance of the inclusion of a funny hat cannot be underestimated.

* A Holy Book. We could use Origin of the Species, or maybe The Selfish Gene, but that's rather dry reading. It seems obvious to me what it's missing....monsters. Inclusion of dinosaurs are a definite plus, but none of them breath fire (Note: can we get some paleontologists to study the feasability that some dinosaurs breathed fire?). We've got no dragons, no djinn, no giants (ok, 1 ton giant rats are at least a good start). How hard would it be to stick some giant hominids somewhere in the evolutionary tree? I know we have those south asian hobbits, but that seems just a bit too much like a product tie-in for The Lord of the Rings.

* We need some prophecies. These are best sprinkled at random through the holy book. Remember, the most important thing about prophecies are not that they are accurate, it's that they are vauge. Let the adherants of the religion figure it all out in a few hundred years (this has the added benefit of making easy religious book sales).

* We need a reason for people to believe us. All the big guys seem to have a fairly simple setup. If you listen to us you get good stuff, if you don't listen to us you will suffer unimaginable pain in a prison of fire for all eternity. Right now the best we can muster is that you are a chemical machine who's mind is an illusion, and who will one day stop functioning, and in the process destroy all consciousness and knowledge that we has obtained up to this point. Ok, be honest, this just sucks. We're never going to win converts like this. For the "good stuff" I think we should use clinical immortality. No one likes dying, so this seems like a sure thing. Get the PR guys to work on a motto like "Why wait till you die to go to heaven when you can have heaven right here on earth". Also, make sure to mention the lax moral standards we have. I think right out on the church sign we should put "You can have sex whenever you want with whoever/whatever you want, it's okay with us". As for the eternal flames of damnation, well, they've got us on this one, but we can at least close the gap. I think a combination of global warming with killer asteroids would work ok. This has the added benefit of effecting everyone, even the faithful. This should make the faithful bigtime evangalists for our cause.

That's all I've got for now, but I'll keep you in the loop if I come up with anything else.

Hi,I like the idea of a non-theistic religion. I founded the Curch of Scientific Humanism many years ago (see: scihuman.org)We do have a so-called holy book, namely God Fraud (ISBN: 0-9713985-5-0).We used to hold gatherings of like minded folk. We affiliated with all those organizations that you'd expect.However, getting Humanists and their ilk to do anything that even remotely resembles a group is much like herding cats.I have found that people who think generally try to control their emotions, to ask questions and get answers. Once that's done, they move on to the next thing that's bugging them.Yet, I've also found that all humans, even Humanists, have a need for group-related activities. These include: births, namings, coming-of-age, graduation, marriage, and death ceremonies. Therefore, there is a basic conflict between the human social need and the intelligent, educated or intellectual person's skepticism and independence. I also find a huge negative reaction to the word religion. I feel that the Theists have usurped the word to require some kind of diety in order for the word to be used. I was pleased to see that, within this forum, we recognize that it is possible to have a religion devoted to the betterment of humankind that does not require one or more gods or imaginary states of being.Although I can not say that I'm much closer to an answer, I hope that I have developed a synthesis that does address some of the religious needs of the Non-theist. I hope that others will continue to seek better solutions, in the hope that whatever it is, it will light some kind of an emotional spark under the posteriors of the vast majority of thinking, caring people who reject magic, mystery and superstition. Then, we could indeed have a movement based both on emotion and reason that would sweep across the world.Either that or I have this really great bridge that's up for sale ....:p Thanks